The downfall of a dating fraudster

A prolific romance fraudster is currently serving the latest in a string of prison sentences for scamming women out of thousands of pounds through false promises of love and a luxury lifestyle. But there are fears he could be responsible for “hundreds” more victims.

Raymond McDonald, 51, has been in and out jail several times across the last two decades, beginning with a sentence for fraud in 2003 before turning his hand to romance scams.

He last left prison in December 2023 and was soon simultaneously seeing several women he met through dating sites, cheating them out of money and even pretending to marry one victim.

By August he was back in jail having left another trail of financial and emotional devastation.

Some of the women he defrauded have told the BBC the trauma they suffered at his hands was similar to that felt by victims of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

They say for all the material loss McDonald has caused, the emotional distress he leaves behind runs much, much deeper.

“People normally think ‘dangerous’ is somebody who can physically hurt you, make you bleed, but Raymond hurts people emotionally,” says Saad Sheban, the latest detective to put the dating fraudster from County Durham behind bars.

Yet there is little sign McDonald sees prison as anything other than a temporary reprieve for the people whose lives he shatters, with police believing the number of victims could reach three figures.

McDonald even targeted one woman while on day release from jail.

His lies follow a familiar pattern: A distinguished army career, villa in Cyprus, working strange hours to allow him space to cultivate multiple relationships at the same time.

In reality, as Det Con Sheban describes him: “McDonald is a serial scammer who routinely preys on women who are just trying to find a life companion.”

And each chapter of his offending always ends the same way: Women fight back.

Within days of his release from jail last December, McDonald made contact through a dating site with the first of his known targets who we are calling Paula.

He told her he was working over Christmas in a secretive military role, training foreign soldiers, but wanted to stay in touch with her during the festive season.

Paula recalls: “I said, ‘these soldiers – are they from Ukraine?’ He said he couldn’t tell me, but that I might be right.

“(He) just made you feel, I don’t know, wanted. Special. I hadn’t been in a relationship for such a long time. I suppose in hindsight, it was what I wanted to hear.”

McDonald wasn’t just charming Paula.

Over the next few weeks he formed relationships with several other women, arranging to meet and telling them he was newly divorced or starting a new job.

He juggled spending time with them by pretending to work shifts.

“He only wanted to meet really early – like half seven in the morning – because he said he was going to work,” one woman said.

Another was spun the line that McDonald needed to be on shift at the probation service in the evenings.

In truth, he was himself reporting to probation.

The women who spoke to the BBC all agreed he came across as warm, genuine and even a little vulnerable at first.

But while claiming he was shy, bereaved or recovering from a bad break-up, McDonald was taking money from them to pay for things that never materialised – from cut-price luxury items to house deposits.

Some victims believed he had property abroad, fancy cars, a log cabin in the Lake District or a caravan near Blackpool.

For one woman the lies did not involve money, but marriage.

Still maintaining multiple relationships, McDonald jetted off to the Middle East for what his partner believed was a whirlwind wedding mere weeks into their relationship.

Police believe McDonald paid for the trip using money scammed from other victims. He made all the arrangements and showed his partner fake evidence their marriage was legal under local law.

She had no reason to suspect it was in fact all a sham, but as they returned from their “honeymoon” in March – just four months after McDonald had left prison – the net was closing in.

Some of his victims had grown suspicious about who he really was, with Paula concerned enough to use Clare’s Law, via which people can request information about a partner’s previous offending.

“Women need to know that you can use Clare’s Law to ask about more than just convictions for domestic abuse,” she says.

“You can also find out about financial abuse and coercive control.”

As Paula was getting answers, elsewhere another woman was starting to question McDonald’s motives.

He had pressured her to pay him more and more money for bargain luxury goods that never appeared, so when someone she knew offered to post about him on a Facebook group called ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy?’, she agreed.

The responses to that post were shocking.

Members of the group did indeed know Ray McDonald, with one posting a newspaper article from a previous trial in which the judge described him as “gutless”.

Among the people who saw the posts was his new bride.

As she read the comments, while her “husband” was sitting in another room of the same house, she says: “My world just fell.”

She made an excuse to get out and called the police who, hours later, arrested him. The women were about to discover who they had really been dating.

Giving a stark summary of Raymond McDonald, his mother says: “He’s got naff all. He’s a bloody big liar. I’ve had two nervous breakdowns because of him.”

Among the many lies McDonald told the women he duped was that his mother was dying of cancer. He even pretended to go to her funeral on Valentine’s Day.

Alive and living in County Durham, she says: “He’s hurt the women he’s stole off and promised to marry. It was a full sham.

“He just kept going and going and going. I can’t tell you how many times he’s been in jail.”

His family currently have no contact with him after years of dealing with the fallout from his lies.

Previous victims have come to the house and threatened his relatives, who he also had a habit of lying to.

“He even told us he was dying,” his sister says. “Got everyone in a room – even his nana and grandad – and told us all he was dying.

“Three days later, it all came out he wasn’t.

“He doesn’t stop. He can’t. He’s fifty now. It’s like… does he want to die in jail, alone?”

As with many elaborate con tricks, not everything Raymond McDonald said was a lie.

He had indeed been in the army. Dishonourably discharged in 2000, McDonald worked briefly in a supermarket and at a factory packing chickens but soon began committing fraud.

He received his first prison term in 2003. A suspended sentence was handed to him four years later, followed by four more stints in jail.

Released during the term he was given in 2019, he immediately began scamming another woman and was recalled to prison.

Within two weeks of his release last December he was back on dating sites picking targets.

When the women learned the truth, they were devastated.

“My whole world fell apart,” says one. “I was just a wreck.”

Another told us that, after detectives turned up at her house and told her what had been happening, she “couldn’t get out of bed”.

And the woman who thought she had married him added: “He said his love was real yet everything he told me about himself was a lie.”

Dr Elisabeth Carter, who advises police on offenders’ grooming methods, believes only about 15% of victims of face-to-face romance fraud come forward.

“There is this shame,” she says.

“They’ve not only lost their money. This person was right in front of them lying to their face.

“After they realise they’re the victim of a crime, they also have grief to deal with. They’ve lost the love of their life.

“The impact on victims, psychologically, of romance fraud is akin to the psychological impact of rape and other types of sexual abuse and assault.”

After his latest arrest in March, McDonald initially denied all wrongdoing but later pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation.

In August he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison at Newcastle Crown Court.

The judge said he did not think the sentence would be enough for some of the victims even if it had been life.

He noted the emotional impact on the women was much greater than the financial loss suffered.

Asked if there could be more victims living with the consequences of McDonald’s two decades of lies, Det Con Saad Sheban said: “It’ll be hundreds during this time.”

And the detective has his own theory on the character behind the crimes.

“Ray was in denial. He didn’t believe he’d scammed anyone. He didn’t believe what he’d done was wrong.

“That’s what the scary part is. Once you think what you’re doing is absolutely right then you’re not going to stop.”

But he was forced to by some of the women he thought he could control.

Those who came forward say they want to take what has been a deeply traumatic experience and channel it into something positive – namely warning other women about McDonald before he is released.

“This crime isn’t just about fraud,” says one. “This man ruins lives. Some of us were left suicidal.

“Dating sites need to take more responsibility and the law needs to change. Until it does, women need to look out for other women.”